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CONSULTANCY SERVICES TO CONDUCT AN EVALUATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS TRAINING PROGRAMMES TO JUDICIAL OFFICERS, COURT STAFF AND JUSTICE SECTOR PROFESSIONALS IN THE OECS

1. Background:

Member States of the Organisation of the Eastern Caribbean States have benefitted from support of development partners including UNICEF, in relation to a large number of activities to promote and protect human rights in the administration of justice. These include legislative reform, capacity-building, advocacy, coordination and partnership, aimed at improving justice for children in conflict with the law and for child victims and witnesses. These efforts include strengthening child justice systems to promote prevention, diversion, restorative justice and reintegration for children in conflict with the law.

In particular, these efforts contribute to the development of robust, rule of law-based justice systems, by providing ongoing support for various justice sector initiatives to ensure alignment with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Such assistance includes human rights capacity development of justice sector stakeholders in dealing with cases involving minors and adopting measures aimed at protecting the best interest of children and the rights of women during court procedures.

Towards this goal, UNICEF has supported the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC) in several training programmes within the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), aimed at strengthening the capacity of judges and magistrates in child protection. The ECSC comprises 9 member states and territories – Antigua and Barbuda, Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines. These islands all form part of an association under the revised Treaty of Basseterre, under the wider supervision of the OECS Commission, whose basic function is to strengthen economic and political cooperation among Member States. The ECSC headquarters is based in St. Lucia, but supervises the work of the national courts in the 9 Member States and Territories. The Judicial Education Institute is the training and development arm for the ECSC. It initiates and coordinates training activities at all levels for the judiciary. This would include training for judges and magistrates as well as training for the support staff.

Training programmes introduce basic human rights principles with particular focus on women’s and children’s rights; provide specialized training to key personnel who work with children; and build skills of participants to interview and draw children’s testimony in court hearings.

More specifically, the programmes have been geared towards:

Enhancing the knowledge and skills of justice personnel on principles of women’s and children’s rights to increase access to justice for marginalized and vulnerable populations;

Facilitating children’s access to social, safety and justice services that are more respectful of their rights and their active participation;

Improving the quality of interactions between children and stakeholders by implementing standard operating procedures and new procedures tailored to children; and

Developing the capacities of courts to integrate women’s and children’s rights principles.

The ECSC, in partnership with UNICEF, is undertaking an independent assessment of human rights training programmes conducted in the Eastern Caribbean over the period 2012-2017.

2. Purpose of Consultancy:

The purpose of the evaluation is to assess the extent to which expected results of Human Rights training of judicial officers, court staff and justice sector professionals were achieved. Specifically the evaluation seeks to:-

(a) Establish the extent to which the goals and objectives of human rights training programmes were met.

(b) Examine the impact/change realised through training programmes on desired modification in behavior as it relates to human rights approaches to court administration and adjudication;

(c) Assess whether training has demonstrable effect on the judicial management of cases and court services as it relates to the treatment of vulnerable groups such as women and children;

(d) Assess the adequacy and efficiency of methods of training and determine whether they are the best ones to achieve the desired results;

(e) Examine whether the cost of training investments is proportionate with achievements towards the desired results;

(f) Identify possible gaps/weaknesses in training programme design, approach and implementation and provide recommendations on what aspects of the training should be strengthened or improved to sustain learning and behavior change after the end of the programme;

(g) Analyse challenges and critical risk factors and how they may have affected the impact of the training programmes; and

(h) Identify lessons learned and good practices to inform learning and critical reflection in the design and implementation of future training programmes.

3. Scope:

The evaluation will assess the extent to which human rights training of judges, magistrates, court staff and justice sector officials in the OECS over the last five years have achieved the desired end-results.

Under the guidance of the ECSC and UNICEF, the Consultant will:-

a. Carry out a desk top review of all the relevant documents; this should entail a review of project documents and other related documents, such as training reports, progress reports, monitoring and evaluation reports, national strategies and documents;

b. Attend an inception meeting to be held with ECSC and its partners;

c. Prepare an inception report to include the refined objectives and methodology, scope and initial assessment;

d. Conduct surveys, field research and interviews with programme stakeholders/beneficiaries;

e. Develop draft report;

f. Debrief and present on the evaluation findings and recommendations (for quality assurance); and

g. Incorporate comments/feedback and develop final report.

4. Evaluation Questions and Criteria

Efficiency

Were resources used appropriately and economically to produce the desired results for the beneficiaries?

Were the programmes accountable and transparent in the use of resources?

Did the programmes deliver outputs in a cost-efficient and timely manner?

To what extent have the programmes incorporated a human rights-based approach and a gender mainstreaming strategy in its design and implementation?

How and/or to what extent did resource-related issued contribute/enable/prevent the implementation of the programme?

Relevance

Were the programmes designed to align and contribute to the realization of Human Rights & Gender Equality, as defined by international and regional conventions [e.g. CEDAW, CRC, etc.]?

Did the programmes consider political, economic and social contexts in their design and implementation?

Are the training programmes objectives still relevant and attainable?

What was the value of the programme in relation to priority needs identified by the courts/judicial sector?

To what extent were the programmes aligned to national strategies and priorities and other judicial reform initiatives or interventions?

To what extent were the training programmes aligned with or incorporated into the courts strategic plans and judicial reform strategies on integrating human rights and gender equality principles?

Impact

Have the programmes realised impact as per their objectives (as stated in project documents and reports)?

What differences have the training programmes made to its participants?

Have the participants of the training programmes used their acquired learnings in the performance of their duties?

What individual, environmental and structural effects have the programmes brought to court adjudication and administration and to court users, and in particular to women and children – either in the short‐, medium‐ or long‐term?

What specific training programme components led to the above effects?

What were the intended/unintended; positive/negative, micro/macro results?

Have there been any permanent and real attitudinal and systematic changes conducive to the realization of human rights and gender equality in the courts?

To what extent has the training programmes contributed to the integration of human rights and gender equality principles in court policies, judicial reform strategies and service delivery?

Are there any real changes in gender responsiveness of courts?

Were there unintended effects on particular groups that were not adequately considered in the programme design?

Sustainability

Have the training programmes integrated participation of key stakeholders into activities?

What steps or measure were undertaken to build ownership of the programmes by beneficiaries and promote sustainability?

Have implementing partners and other key stakeholders developed the capacity and motivation to continue and lead similar training programmes?

Can the training programmes become self‐sustaining financially?

Are the results sustainable?

Have the programmes resulted in an enabling or adaptable environment for real change on human rights & gender equality?

Have there been any institutional change conducive to systematically addressing HR & GE concerns, in particular as it relates to women’s and children’s rights?

Have there been the establishment of accountability and oversight systems?

Have there been capacity development of targeted rights holders and duty bearers to respectively demand and fulfil rights?

Programme Design

Could the training programmes be more effective and efficient if the components were designed or delivered differently?

What worked well and why? What did not work well and why?

What needs improvement/strengthening?

Monitoring and evaluation systems:

Did the programmes have appropriate monitoring and evaluation systems in place to track results of the initiative?

How were the results of the training initiatives measured?

Conclusions, Recommendations and Lessons Learned

The Evaluator is expected to draw conclusions, make recommendations and highlight lessons learned from the various training programmes.

5. Deliverables:

The Consultancy will provide the following outputs:

1. An inception report.

2. A draft report with findings of the evaluation.

3. A final report with findings and recommendations, including survey instruments and e- copies of all knowledge products obtained during the consultancy.

4. An evaluation brief of no longer than 15 pages and an accompanying PowerPoint presentation.

6. Duration of contract:

The contract period will run for a four month period from January to April 2018.

7. Qualifications and Specialized Knowledge/Experience Required:

Apart from competitive cost, submissions will be assessed based on quality of work, qualifications, competency, expertise and experience. The Consultancy service should have:

At least a Master’s Degree in human rights studies; legal studies; development studies; social sciences; project management or other related disciplines

The core skills required for this consultancy will include;

A minimum of 5 years’ experience in undertaking programme impact evaluations preferably but not necessarily in an OECS/Caribbean context;

Experience in Programme evaluation as evidenced by a sample evaluation report;

Good research and analytical skills in similar assignment

Experience in designing or implementing or evaluating regional or multi-country programmes within the legal/judicial system;

Demonstrated understanding of human rights issues with a particular focus on women’s and children’s rights;

Ability to work within tight timelines and ability to adhere to evaluation protocol; and